I understand that. I'm going by your numbers and your comment from a post earlier in this thread. You said since 1996 Texas has made it five times and twice in the World Series.

Since 1996 the Sox have made it three times and once to the World Series.

That's doing a better job in my opinion.

You can make the case that the Sox have wasted as many excellent chances to get to the post season in that time frame as they've actually gotten in.

Lip

I was going off of history, those 5 times are the only 5 times the Rangers have made the playoffs, or the same number of time the Sox have made the playoffs under JR's ownership. The Sox have made it twice since 2005 (same as the Rangers) and won a WS (one more than the Rangers).

__________________Riding shotgun on the Sox bandwagon since before there was an Internet...

We will see if that trend continues, considering the large discrepancy between detroit and the Sox salaries this year.

2012 11th
2011 5th
2010 7th
2009 12th
2008 5th
2007 5th
2006 4th

Yes the Sox cut payroll this year after not making the playoffs last year and seeing the attendance not support the levels.

Honestly, the KW regime has proved the Sox are willing to spend for a FA or two or three to try to get to the next level. They've done it time and time again. The attacks on the Sox for being cheap are meaningless, trollish and sad.

Ganging up on Lip is fun and all, but the Rangers are a better organization than the Sox right now. Nolan Ryan turned the franchise around when he became team president. He became partial owner in 2010 and for the first time in a long time the Rangers had an owner who actually cared about winning. Look at the team the last three seasons and the farm system they have. They are quickly becoming a model franchise. And this is from someone who generally defends Ken Williams.

Ganging up on Lip is fun and all, but the Rangers are a better organization than the Sox right now. Nolan Ryan turned the franchise around when he became team president. He became partial owner in 2010 and for the first time in a long time the Rangers had an owner who actually cared about winning. Look at the team the last three seasons and the farm system they have. They are quickly becoming a model franchise. And this is from someone who generally defends Ken Williams.

Yes, the Rangers are well run at the moment, that doesn't mean the Sox are poorly run. It's actually possible for both teams to be having successful runs at the same time, unless your only standard is winning World Series in which case since 2006 both teams suck...

Yes the Sox cut payroll this year after not making the playoffs last year and seeing the attendance not support the levels.

Honestly, the KW regime has proved the Sox are willing to spend for a FA or two or three to try to get to the next level. They've done it time and time again. The attacks on the Sox for being cheap are meaningless, trollish and sad.

Just my opinion...

Way too early to go into this. I'll wait to see what happens next year with attendance being lower than previous year and salary able to be taken off the books.

My point was that they should always be in the top 1/3 but it has been trending down.

Yes the Sox cut payroll this year after not making the playoffs last year and seeing the attendance not support the levels.

Honestly, the KW regime has proved the Sox are willing to spend for a FA or two or three to try to get to the next level. They've done it time and time again. The attacks on the Sox for being cheap are meaningless, trollish and sad.

Just my opinion...

I don't think the Sox are cheap, I just worry going forward if they will have the resources to compete with the few teams getting huge TV deals. It seems in the past decade or so that only the Red Sox and Yankees had truly huge payrolls in the AL, but the Rangers and Angels (and Tigers, as long as Illitch is alive, but that's a bit of different case as I don't think he cares about how much the team makes or loses) have these now huge TV deals and corresponding revenues such that they can spend accordingly. I don't think the Sox have those resources, nor are they likely to in the near future.

Way too early to go into this. I'll wait to see what happens next year with attendance being lower than previous year and salary able to be taken off the books.

My point was that they should always be in the top 1/3 but it has been trending down.

One year is a trend? The average of these years is 7th. Remember, it only started spiking in 2006 too. The 2005 club that won it all was a middle of the pack payroll. I don't know if the Sox will be a top 10 payroll next year, it's been a bad year for attendance, but maybe if they make the playoffs it will feed some season ticket sales next year. There wasn't really a choice but to cut payroll this year when the big ticket acquisitions the last few years fell mostly flat, though they've rebounded to have solid years this year for the most part. There should be money to spend next year though and I expect it to get spent. I can't picture the Sox falling off the map from a payroll perspective and becoming Cleveland or KC. It maybe a few years until they get back to $110M+ though and that's okay with me. If the core talent looks to be good enough to make a push with some tweaks than spend and go for it. If the pitching staff stays solid, the team will be there, the question is what to tweak for the position players.

Yes, the Rangers are well run at the moment, that doesn't mean the Sox are poorly run. It's actually possible for both teams to be having successful runs at the same time, unless your only standard is winning World Series in which case since 2006 both teams suck...

My point was, it's a little disingenuous to go back to 1996 to say the Rangers are a bad franchise. Since Ryan became president, the team has improved every year. After missing the playoffs the first two years, they will have made it the last three (with two pennants). The Rangers in 2012 are a completely different franchise than the Rangers of 2004. The only thing they share are hats.